Posted Thursday 25th June 2009 23:18 GMT
Arthur C Clarke was right, he just got Saturn and Jupiter confused. Although there isn't a spot made up of monoliths, slow gravitational compression (Kelvin-Helmholtz mechanism) will turn Saturn into a star, or a sun as far as Enceladus is concerned. Alas not in my lifetime though.
Posted Friday 26th June 2009 09:46 GMT
"he just got Saturn and Jupiter confused"
No, he didn't. Originally the end destination was Saturn. It appears the film people couldn't think up a convincing representation of Saturn and so switched to Jupiter. (A quick search results in this answer as to why they switched - ymmv.)
Clarke kept Saturn as the end destination in the first book but switched to Jupiter in the rest.
Posted Friday 26th June 2009 10:13 GMT
"Arthur C Clarke was right, he just got Saturn and Jupiter confused. "
No, he didn't. Ever since fly-by of the Voyager probes, the Jovian moon Europa has been strongly suspected of having an ocean under its ice cover, and this was already being discussed at the time Clarce wrote the "2010". The interesting thing is there now seems to be at least one other moon with an iced-over ocean.
Posted Friday 26th June 2009 10:13 GMT
actually, Clarke got it spot on: in the novel the Discovery is heading for Saturn, not Jupiter. This was changed for the movie primarily because Douglas Trumbull couldn't come up with a convincing effect for Saturn's rings, although he later got the hang of it and recycled them for Silent Running.
And Austin: man, that's some subtle headlining. Nice work.
Posted Friday 26th June 2009 10:13 GMT
Looks more like an electric Aurora Borealis to me?
Posted Friday 26th June 2009 10:19 GMT
...welcome our new salty spurting overlords. Er, hang on.
Posted Friday 26th June 2009 10:19 GMT
"nearly every time it found at least some sodium within the particles ... The measurements also contained carbonates like soda"
"Sodium combined with chloride are the two major components of salt."
Good grief.
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Paris because she has probably detected saltiness in her time.
Posted Friday 26th June 2009 10:19 GMT
It was Saturn in the original book if I remember correctly.
Posted Friday 26th June 2009 10:19 GMT
... for a subtitle about salty eruptions...
Posted Friday 26th June 2009 10:19 GMT
More to that.
The original monolith site was Iapetus, which has the "cosmic beacon" effect of having a higher albedo on one side than the other while also being tidelocked to Saturn. The effect here is that it appears to blink, brightening and darkening as it orbits.
When they got their first pictures back from one of the probes, there was a suspicous black spot right smack in the centre of the bright side. This was ringed on the first print and had the words "Arthur was right!" written next to it.
Posted Friday 26th June 2009 11:36 GMT
The explanation is quite obvious - there must be some giant whales underneath the ice there. No need for this science nonsense!
Posted Friday 26th June 2009 11:36 GMT
Could A Man From Mars, really be a Man from Saturn? I notice he's keeping very quiet on this story.
Posted Friday 26th June 2009 11:36 GMT
Having only seen the film and not read the book I concede that I have little idea of what I am talking about.
'Tis Nice to be educated though, thank you.
Posted Friday 26th June 2009 15:43 GMT
1. Fact: sodium ions found in the ices of Saturn's outer ring.
2. Fact: sodium not observed in Enceladus plumes.
3. Conclusion: there exists a subterranean salt (NaCl) water (H20) ocean on/in Enceladus.
WTF?
You have to hand it to these guys - they won't take no for an answer. They looked for water on comets - didn't find much (about 1% of what was expected). They looked for water on Mars - didn't find much (lots of protons on the surface, so all the water must be underground). And now they're looking on the Moon (polar craters) and anywhere there's have a chance of getting away with a quick modus tolens and a barrel of pork.
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